Modulation of Staphylococcus epidermidis adhesion and biofilm formation by specific biomaterial surfaces

药吗?近几十年来的巨大进步与生物材料植入物的使用密切相关，生物材料植入物即植入患者体内的人工装置。组织，如血管中的某些类型的导管（或大滴管）、人工关节和心脏瓣膜、心脏起搏器、人工人工人工晶体和大脑中的分流器。感染是使用这类装置的一个主要并发症，给受影响的患者造成严重痛苦和死亡，并给卫生保健系统和整个社会造成重大损失。一旦装置受到感染，就很难根除感染，通常必须再次取出装置，并采取进一步的程序来更换它们。在某些情况下，替代手术以及感染本身对患者具有非常高的风险。最常引起这些感染的生物，即表皮葡萄球菌，已经从罕见的默默无闻的病原体，上升为与MRSA，艰难梭菌和其他抗生素耐药生物一致的卫生保健相关感染的五大原因之一。表皮葡萄球菌具有粘附或定植生物材料表面的特殊倾向。迫切需要更好地了解这种细菌与生物材料表面的相互作用，以及在此过程中生物体性质的变化。我们最近发现，不同的生物材料以不同的方式增强了细菌定植机制的表达。我们试图更好地理解这些过程，这可能会导致不容易定植和感染的生物材料的合理开发和评估。通过这些新发展，生物材料相关感染的数量只减少了百分之几，就可以防止成千上万的病人不必要的丧失能力和痛苦，更不用说节省大量的费用了。

Medicine?s tremendous progress in recent decades is closely linked to the ever increasing use of biomaterial implants, that is, artificial devices which are implanted into patients? tissues, such as some types of catheters (or large ?drips?) in blood vessels, artificial joints and heart valves, cardiac pacemakers, artificial intraocular lenses, and shunts in the brain. Infection is a major complication of the use of such devices causing major suffering and mortality for the affected patients, and significant costs for the health care system and society in general. Once the devices become infected it is very difficult to eradicate the infection, and often the devices must be removed again, and further procedures undertaken to replace them. In some cases replacement procedures, as well as the infection itself, carries very high risks to the patient. The organism causing these infections most frequently, namely, Staphylococcus epidermidis, has risen from rare obscurity as a pathogen to be one of the five major causes of health-care associated infection in line with MRSA, Clostridium difficile, and other antibiotic resistant organisms. Staphylococcus epidermidis has a particular propensity to adhere to, or colonise, biomaterial surfaces. Better understanding of the interaction of this bacterium with biomaterial surfaces, and the changes in the properties of the organisms during process is urgently needed. We have recently found that different biomaterials enhance expression of the mechanisms involved in bacterial colonisation in measurably different ways. We seek to better understand these processes, which may lead to the rational development and evaluation of biomaterials less prone to colonisation and infection. The reduction of the number of biomaterial-related infections through these new developments by only a few percent could prevent unnecessary incapacity and sufferings for thousands of patients, not to mention large cost savings.